I Took the Demon King as My Wife

Eilena finally let out a sigh of relief after personally feeding the potion to the last one.

‘There’s still a little left….’
The potion that the hero had given her was truly remarkable; just a drop or two on the lips was enough to quickly restore vitality.
Looking at the bottle with its swirling liquid, Eilena slowly returned to where he was.
“Um….”
“Hmm?”

Eilena approached Hans, who was slowly laying Ku down on the floor.
“Th-thank you… thanks to you, everyone was saved….”

“No need for thanks, we were the cause to begin with.”
“Ah….”

That’s right.
It was this guy who had invaded and reduced everyone to this state, and here she was thanking him.
The thought crossed her mind momentarily, but at the same time, she was genuinely grateful.
It might be like giving medicine after causing the disease, but at least he provided the medicine.

“Whatever the case, the fact that everyone survived thanks to you remains unchanged.”
Eilena said this as she returned the remaining potion to him.

However, Hans stared at the potion she handed him and then asked,
“It’s fine, keep it for now. Since you can’t use magic anymore, you never know when you might need it.”

“Ah… alright then.”
As she put the potion into her pocket as he suggested, Ku, who had been lying on the floor, slowly opened her eyes.
“D-Demon King…?”
“Ku? Are you conscious?”
With Eilena’s support, who rushed over quickly, Ku barely managed to sit up.
Fully opening her eyes, Ku noticed Hans standing behind Eilena and trembled.

She immediately grabbed Eilena’s arm, pulled her behind herself, and shouted.
“Demon King! Get away!”

“W-wait, Ku…!”

Before Eilena could stop her, the highly agitated Ku surrounded her hands with menacing magical power and rushed toward Hans.
“Y-you…!”
“Hah….”
As if he had expected this, Hans let out a short sigh.
Then he lightly dodged Ku’s charge, drew his sword still in its scabbard, and gently struck the back of her neck.

-Puk.
“Kyaak!”
With a short scream, Ku lost consciousness again on the spot.

“Ah….”
Eilena covered her throbbing forehead with her hand, which had failed to reach Ku.

“…Not my fault.”
Hans said as he tucked his sword back at his waist.

“I know….”

Whew, a sigh escaped involuntarily.
.
.
.

A moment later.
“Ugh…”
“Ku, are you conscious?”
A familiar déjà vu.

Ku, who had neatly fainted from the hero’s light blow, opened her eyes again after a while.
This time with her arms and legs tied up, as Hans had anticipated she might rush at him again.
Finding herself tied up like a pig for roasting, Ku began to thrash about and shout at Hans.

“W-what is this…! Y-you!”
“Ku! Wait, listen to me for a moment!”
Despite having her hands and feet tied, Ku still emanated fierce hostility toward Hans. She struggled to lunge at him.

However, this time she was barely restrained by Eilena’s hand, and she heard the full story from her.

“What? No, Demon King, what are you saying…!”
After hearing the entire story, Ku couldn’t close her mouth.
It was a natural reaction.
Though it was called a marriage for reconciliation, it was essentially no different from taking her lord as a slave.
Like invaders taking women from defeated nations as spoils of war.

The hero, who was leaning against a wall far away, pretending to be dignified, was nothing but a disgusting invader in her eyes.

‘Damn it!’
Ku grimaced and tightly closed her eyes.
It’s my fault. All because of my weakness.
Her lord whom she had served her entire life.
The one she should serve with her life and still feel insufficient.
To have to watch her being sold off as a plaything for a mere human man.
Ku’s teeth ground in anger.
Her deeply furrowed face was darkly shadowed with a mixture of all kinds of negative emotions.

“……”
Eilena couldn’t properly look at Ku’s face and helplessly dropped her head.
Then after a moment, as if she had made a decision, she got up and slowly approached Hans, who was standing against the wall.
“Um… Hero, could you allow us to talk privately for a moment?”

Hans, who had been staring at the approaching Eilena, immediately frowned slightly at her words.
“Demon King, I’m already giving you the maximum…”
“Ah, I know! I know that… so just a moment… just a very brief moment! I-I absolutely won’t do anything rash! I will never disobey your words in the future. So…”
Eilena’s hands touched Hans’s arm that was resting on his sword hilt.
She looked up at him with desperate eyes as she spoke.
Hans still seemed displeased.
“……”
The ring on her hand that gripped his arm glowed red.

Following her slender hand up with his gaze, he saw ruby-colored eyes looking up at him precariously, as if they might fall at any moment.

Her pale lips were trembling and quivering slightly, and the same vibration could be felt from her fingertips on his arm.

“Haah….”
At this, Hans sighed as if giving up and slid his half-drawn sword back into its scabbard.
“I can’t wait long.”

“I-I understand! Just a moment is enough!”

At his reluctant words, color returned to Eilena’s face, which had been heavily shadowed.
Hans, who hesitated for a moment at this sight, soon left the place.

Eilena immediately approached Ku.
“Ku, listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you.”
“What…? Ah… yes….”
Eilena grabbed Ku’s shoulders and spoke.
*
A while later, Eilena slowly approached Hans, who was waiting alone outside the Demon King’s castle.
“You really came quickly.”
“I told you, just a moment would be enough.”
“It seems you told her something you couldn’t tell me?”
At Hans’s words, Eilena shook her head vigorously.
“That’s not it. Rather, I thought Ku wouldn’t listen if you were there.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s depart now.”
“…Alright.”
Eilena slowly followed behind Hans, who had immediately started walking.
Walking silently behind him, Eilena suddenly stopped and looked back.
“……”
The castle, rising high as if to pierce the dark sky, came into full view.

Her home for the past 200 years.
Though she had left countless times until now, this time felt distinctly different.
For some reason, a vague feeling that she might never return weighed on her chest.

“Demon King…? What are you doing?”
Hans suddenly spoke to Eilena, who was standing dazed, looking back.
Eilena shook her head and walked back to his side.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
It must be just a baseless worry.
She would definitely return.

No matter what happened, she would surely come back and reclaim her original life.
‘For now… I have no choice but to follow his words….’
With that thought in mind, Eilena moved her heavy feet.
*
Arriving instantly in human territory through Hans’s teleportation scroll, Eilena.
She immediately followed Hans, who was walking briskly, through a dark alley filled with unfamiliar buildings.
Soon, as they approached a path leading to the main road, Hans went ahead and slightly poked his head out, slowly looking left and right as if surveying the situation.
Eventually, he returned to the alley and removed the cloak from his shoulders, draping it over Eilena’s head.
“W-what is this?”
A surprised Eilena tried to shake off the cloak, lifting her head.
Hans stopped her, bringing his face close to hers and making a gesture with his index finger as if covering his mouth.
“Shh, quiet. From now on, don’t speak and stay close to me.”
“W-what…?”
“Your appearance is too conspicuous, and if you go out to the main road as you are, you’ll certainly attract attention. Stop arguing and do as I say.”
Hans spoke in a voice barely audible, tapping his ear with his fingertips.
At this, Eilena touched the pointed tips of her ears and wrapped his cloak around her face.
“Stay close behind me. Don’t fall behind.”
“I understand, so let’s go.”
Eilena expressed her silent discontent by lowering her voice to Hans, who kept treating her like a child.
However, Hans didn’t notice at all, and soon the two came out onto the wide-open main road.
‘It’s amazing…’
As they entered the main road, the brilliantly lit buildings captured her attention.
While keeping pace with the man walking quickly ahead of her, Eilena was busy looking around, examining various things.
‘The capital is certainly different, I suppose.’
The street was filled with tall and massive buildings of various kinds, incomparable to the small frontier towns she had seen before.

Colorful signboards and various ornate entrances showed great care in their decoration.
The buildings were predominantly luxurious, to the point of seeming extravagant rather than just opulent.
But.
“There are no people….”
Despite it still being early evening, there were hardly any people on the streets.
Even on the main road, wide enough for at least six carriages to pass side by side, pedestrians were extremely rare.
The few people who could be seen were mostly beggars or vagrants.
“……”
At Eilena’s quiet murmur, Hans slightly turned his head back. However, he didn’t add any words.

He didn’t reprimand her for looking around curiously.
He just continued walking briskly forward, heading endlessly toward their destination.
*
Not long after, the two entered a shabby shack.
Hans slowly moved to the center, brushed the floor, and lifted a carpet, revealing a secret passage.
“Where does this lead to?”

“The palace.”
“What?”
“We don’t have time to waste, so follow me closely.”
“No, wait! Hey!”

Before Eilena could say anything, Hans had disappeared into the deep darkness.

In the end, Eilena also followed him down the narrow passage without any mental preparation.
*
-Jeolgeureuk, grrrr.
With the sound of something interlocking, a small stone door moved.
Eventually, the two people squeezed through the narrow passage and emerged.

“Cough, cough! Shouldn’t you have warned me about this beforehand?!”
“Would it have made any difference if I had? Besides, you kept dallying, so we lost a lot of time!”
The two people who had barely passed through the narrow passage were in a complete mess.
Hans, already sturdily built, had his arms and legs all scratched from the narrow passage, and Eilena was covered in dirt from head to toe.

Not only had she inhaled the musty dust, but the soil scattered by Hans who went ahead had gotten into her eyes, making it difficult to see.

Eilena constantly coughed and shook off her dress with irritation.
“Hmm… a bit later than expected?”
“..?”
While Eilena, unable to open her eyes properly, was rubbing them vigorously, a voice came from behind her.
She hurriedly brushed off the dirt and turned her head toward the sound.

A man with glowing green eyes was sitting on a large sofa with an arrogant posture.
“You are…”
“I apologize for making you come through such a path. Here, please sit.”
“I-I’m sorry, Your Imperial Majesty. I should have expedited our schedule…”
Just as she was trying to deduce his identity, Hans, who was standing beside her, immediately knelt and bowed deeply to him.

At Hans’s words, Eilena’s eyes widened.
‘This man is the Emperor…?’
The Emperor of the Empire was said to be the ruler of all humanity.
The man sitting before her looked quite different from the Emperor she had known.
Or more precisely, he was too young.
She had thought the Emperor was an old man with white hair, but the man in front of her appeared to be just over 30 years old at most.
“Seeing that you’ve come this far, it seems you’ve accepted his proposal. Well, I’d like to have a conversation based on that belief.”
As she stood still, staring at his face, the Emperor once again invited her to sit across from him.
Only then did Eilena realize she had been standing in a daze, and after a brief bow, she sat down opposite him.

Hans also belatedly stood up and sat beside her.
Once everyone was seated, the Emperor smiled and said,
“Well, as you must have heard just now, I am Adam Osborne, the 34th Emperor of the Empire.”
“The 8th Demon King, Eilena de Mephisto. Ruler of most of the demon realm, excluding the north.”
“I’ve always wanted to meet you. The Sovereign of the Green-Fingered.”

The Emperor flashed a slight smile toward Eilena.

Gulp. Eilena swallowed.